Too Many Guns In The Wrong Hands

Adam Lanza was a deeply troubled young man who never should have had access to guns. But as the state's investigative report released this week made clear, Mr. Lanza had easy access to several guns that were legally purchased by his mother and kept in the family home in Newtown.

The result was horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, where Mr. Lanza took the lives of 20 children and six women before killing himself. Yet as we approach the first anniversary of this tragedy, guns keep falling into the wrong hands, the shootings continue and the nation's polarization over gun control seems to get worse.

The wrong hands that guns fall into are often those of children. In Sparks, Nev., last month, 12-year-old Jose Reyes brought a semi-automatic pistol from his home to his middle school on a Monday. He shot and seriously wounded two schoolmates, shot and killed a math teacher who tried to intervene, and then took his own life, according to news reports. The teacher, Marine Corps veteran Michael Landsberry, 45, was called a hero.

But he, like the educators in Newtown, should not have had to die a hero in a school.

Kids and Guns

In one community, Fayetteville, N.C., in the past month, two children, one 4 years old and the other 2, got ahold of loaded guns and killed themselves. Several children have been shot in Miami-Dade County, Fla., this fall. Three teenagers were shot and wounded outside a school in Pittsburgh. And on it goes.

According to a report by two Boston doctors presented last month at a conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 500 children and teenagers die each year from gunshot wounds and another 7,500 are injured. The researchers, Drs. Arin L. Madenci and Christopher Weldon, proposed shifting the national conversation toward the dangers posed by handguns, not military-style semi-automatic rifles.

In addition to children getting their hands on guns, gang members, drug dealers and such have had no trouble remaining armed and dangerous. On the weekend of Nov. 16-17, 18 people were shot in Chicago, for example.

Little Change

As we approach the anniversary of the Newtown killings, not much has changed. Connecticut and a few other states have strengthened their gun laws, but some states have loosened gun controls. Also, gun permits skyrocketed here and in many parts of the country. From March to September 2013, Connecticut state police issued 18,233 new pistol permits — a 78 percent increase from the same period in 2012, The Courant reported. The National Rifle Association is raising record amounts of money this year, according to news reports.

Given what looks like hard polarization, is it possible to find common ground and pass some common-sense gun-safety measures? Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, thinks so.

Speaking at a recent forum on the Second Amendment at the University of Connecticut Law School, Mr. Aborn laid out the following argument: He said the NRA refuses to consider any measures to increase gun safety because, the organization argues, they will lead to a ban on firearms (even though the Supreme Court has ruled that guns can't be banned).

So, he said, gun-safety advocates must give up any "ban" rhetoric and focus on illegal guns — measures that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill (as well as children).

He has a point. If safety advocates can move the debate to illegal guns, it might be able to pass common-sense measures such as universal background checks — measures supported by a majority of NRA members.